Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mattie_p on Friday February 14 2014, @08:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the spend-more-money dept.

amblivious writes:

"Built in 1932 by the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, Hangar One was one of the largest free standing structures in the world and is now a familiar landmark in Silicon Valley. The building, covering 8 acres (3.2 ha), is large enough to fit 3 ships the size of the Titanic side-by-side. It is so large that it generates its own microclimate, with fog forming in the upper reaches and falling 17 stories to the ground as rain. NASA took over Hangar One from the Navy in 1994 but it had little use and fell into disrepair. In 2012 Google offered $US33 million to repair the facility and has now taken over the lease.

There has been widespread speculation on what Google plans to do with Hangar One, ranging from testing planetary rovers and other space or aviation technology to high altitude balloons, or simply for use as an elaborate hangar for Google's executive planes.

In a statement on Monday, a Google spokesperson simply said, 'We are delighted to move ahead in the selection process and we are looking forward to working with both GSA and Nasa to preserve the heritage of Moffett Federal Airfield.'"

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by combatserver on Friday February 14 2014, @11:11PM

    by combatserver (38) on Friday February 14 2014, @11:11PM (#126)

    "...it generates its own microclimate, with fog forming in the upper reaches and falling 17 stories to the ground as rain."

    Kind of ironic, considering the hanger was originally built to protect craft from the weather.

    As a kid, I lived near this hanger and my friends and I quickly discovered that the back gate (the one right at the end of the airstrip, and closest to SF Bay) was usually left wide open. This end of the base was accessible by going along rickety cat-walks that went over the huge evaporation ponds that surround SF Bay at that area. Nobody seemed to care about a few kids on bicycles--we literally rode right onto the base. Back then, everyone on the base was riding bicycles to get around from building to building, so we blended right in and could pretty much go where we pleased, including inside this hangar. All sorts of neat stuff for a kid--Helicopters with wings, airplanes with horizontal rotors, smaller versions with no windshields or windows...all sorts of odd stuff straight out of Popular Science.

    "They are buying the hangar because they intend to dig under it."

    That hangar sits on land no more than a meter above sea level, is less than 1000 meters from San Francisco Bay and is surrounded by millions of tons of buried landfill waste (who knows what "garbage" NASA and the military buried there). Digging deep there would be a costly venture, if not dangerous.

    --
    I hope I can change this later...
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3